This is a blog that I have delayed writing for a short time, so that a similar one could get enough airtime on our Bailey Robotics project, however I would still like to document it here.
On the 19th of June 2021, we visited Aberystwyth University to take part in their brilliant BeachLab:relocated robotics event. BeachLab is a fantastic event that is usually held at the Bandstand building on the promenade/seafront in Aberystwyth. It’s a venue that enjoys quite a lot of footfall/traffic from people out and about on a sunny June day, and it offers plenty of chance to engage and speak to the public.
BeachLab has been going since 2013 as far as we can tell, and its aim is to engage with members of the public around computer science, engineering and robotics, often using projects from Aberystwyth University’s computer science and robotics labs, local robotics research groups, an impressive range of entertainment robots, and the incredible Aberystwyth Robotics Club.
This year because of the pandemic, and this being the first Beachlab since it happened, the event was not able to be held at the Bandstand because the building is council owned, and so was closed. This meant the event needed to be temporarily moved, and so we found ourselves under a gazebo in the joint car park of Aberystwyth University’s Computer Science and Physics departments. Ample space to allow the public in (ticketed, and one way of course), to see the robotics on offer from many of the people demonstrating their projects. Including us.
When we arrived after a two hour drive, we felt a little out of place. Everyone was really, really nice of course, but we’d rushed to prepare ourselves for the event, and we were immediately struck by how impressive all the robotics work now around us, was. So much so, that we initially worried we might not fit in.
As the day went on, we realised we need not have worried. We spoke to many members of the public to explain about our home education based robotics, and engaged lots of children, and adults alike with the five robots we had taken down to Aber. We also spoke to a lot of the staff, lecturers and researchers, and there was a good bit of interest about our robots being autonomous, and us building them at home. We took a great deal of advice about robotics, which was gratefully received, (who wouldn’t take robotics advice from university robotics drs and researchers!?), and we spent a lot of time taking in as much information as possible about everyone else’s projects.
We were thrilled to see the Barnes Rover, which is a replica of the Exo Mars Mission, which should be going to Mars sometime in 2022, as well as a range of other robots that we’ll be able to discuss in detail later on when we revist Aberystwyth University to interview their robotics project leads.
Robots like Aber Sailbot’s autonomous sail boat, which is meant to navigate itself across the atlantic ocean, a diamond exhibition I spent a lot of time examining (the uses for diamonds in modern science is absolutely incredible, including medicine), sumo robots, teapot racers, autonomous over land mapping robots (Tryfan and Idris), and a range of entertainment robots ranging from Doris the Dalek, to a standard R2-D2, to a steampunk version of R2, Scutters from Red Dwarf, and droids like BB8 and K-9.
We also met a previous competitor of Robot Wars, and a previous Judge of the same show!
We left the day at Beachlab:relocated absolutely exhausted. We had spent a week intensively finishing robots for the day, gotten up early, driven for a couple of hours, and then spent a good day interacting with the public and displaying our robots. It’s fair to say that the short time I napped in the car on the way home, and the days and days after the event that I rested, were not enough; and I felt extremely tired for a long time after. The day however, was extremely worth the effort, and we would do it again.
The people we met, the robots we saw, the discussions we had, and the effect it had on us all, especially during a break in lockdowns (which we needed), was profound, and we will forever be thankful to the wonderful Dr Patricia Shaw at Aber, who has been supporting us, and who gave us a chance to display our creations to the public, and meet the other members of the computer science department at Aber University.
A really nice group of people!
We hope very much that we will get to display our newer robots at Beachlab 2022
More robotics soon,
Emma